


Life Goes On

by DiLithiumDragon



Category: Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead - Royal
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 06:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14443659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiLithiumDragon/pseuds/DiLithiumDragon
Summary: Beethoven is dead. And life goes on.(And CB has a hard time coming to terms with this fact.)





	Life Goes On

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a fervor after watching Dog Sees God for the first time. I have so many feelings about the idea of dealing with suicide, so that's probably why.
> 
> ([also cross posted with tumblr](http://characteroulette.tumblr.com/post/153308913801/life-goes-on))

The first stage is denial, and there's a lot of that at first. Kicking and screaming, quiet and ugly hate, things untrue said purely to push the blame onto everyone else, anyone else, to deny the feelings existed in the first place. To deny the feelings as if they hadn't been one-hundred percent true the whole time, as if they'd all just been a lie.

And life goes on.

The others go back to their normal, everyday, boring lives. Tricia and Marcy drink during lunch. Van is stoned and always ranting about something or other; today it's how sporks and Salisbury steak have a connection to the school counsellor's dick, yesterday it was the honest to God emptiness left in his sweater after he tore a hole in it. Even CB's sister returns to her phase a week, trying to find herself. And life goes on.

Matt returns to school and things between him and CB are tense for a while. But they even out and soon Matt is joking, laughing, playing with CB like before. It reeks of desperation and everyone does their best to ignore the obvious. CB's sister can't stand to be in the same room as Matt, though it hardly matters as CB doesn't seem to bring Matt around after school anymore. Marcy holds another party and the whole school just forgets about the whole suicide thing. Just fucking forgets.

CB writhes in agony and life just goes on. All around him, life continues like it's no big fucking deal that Beethoven committed suicide and Matt was to blame and that can be forgotten like something eaten for dinner two weeks ago.

Life goes on and it left CB behind.

CB's sister doesn't talk about it, but she and CB sit side by side on the brick wall in silence sometimes, not knowing what to say or if saying anything would break the glass ceiling they have looming over their heads. She continues to make up odd one-woman plays that CB can never understand, though they all seem tinged with more sincerity and grief than he's sure even she's aware of. Meanwhile, CB lays in his bed during the nights, staring at the ceiling with the lights off.

And life goes on.

Sometimes, CB's sure he's being smothered by the silence. That the world is simply taunting him for all the years he did nothing and was nothing and now things will never be the same. However, as maddening as it is, they are the same. They fucking are. CB hangs out with Matt at school and Matt is unrepentant. Doesn't even mention it once. CB has nothing to say, but going through the motions helps him not think about it. About everything. About anything. His mind is a tumultuous mix of numbness and anger and he can't find a balance between the two.

Sometimes, CB can't stand the silence and escapes. He drives out of town, out of their county, and finds an abandoned area to scream and punch the walls until his knuckles bleed. He curls himself into a ball and sits with his back to the wall, sobbing in a mess of noise and raw emotion. And when that runs out, he's left alone with the thoughts he's tried so hard to ignore.

He'll never hear the strains of the piano as he walks by the music room ever again. He'll never hear his dog and the yellow bird playing together in his backyard as they did, sounding almost as if they're laughing. His dog will never again howl along to the music as a frustrated Beethoven competes to hear what he's playing. And CB won't ever find out if they could've made it, given it time, if things might have worked out for them, if they might've truly, really, had something together.

Being left alone with his thoughts for too long doesn't suit CB. And soon he gets back in his car and returns home to annoyed parents and an understanding sister. Life goes on.

Depending on the day, CB flip-flops in his regrets. Today, he regrets not being able to say goodbye. Not to a single one of them. Yesterday, he regretted ever getting involved with Beethoven, for kissing him, for having sex and thinking he was in love. Tomorrow, CB can't decide which is worse and settles for pretending it all doesn't bother him for the day. That he's fine, he's better, he's over it.

But the wounds are still bleeding and CB continues to pretend that the tape he's been given is enough to do the job.

Some days, CB can nearly convince himself that it was all a farce. That he wasn't in love with Beethoven at all, that it was just some kind of fucked up rebound from the grief of losing his dog. Besides, CB isn't gay. He still finds girls attractive and if given the chance he'd get back together with Van's sister. If that doesn't make him a straight guy, not a Homo, he's not sure what would.

But Van's sister stays locked up. And life goes on.

Tricia and Marcy and Van hint like they know something about Matt, but never say what it is. Matt, for his part, doesn't seem any different. There are moments CB can identify as being awkward or not like before, though he finds himself shying away instinctively from those moments. They never become anything more. In time, CB's sister stops sitting on the wall with CB and goes back to her routine of picking at him.

"Immerse yourself in life."

It's sudden and painful, but one day CB can't get the words out of his head. He skips school to drive out, away, as far as he can allow himself to. Then, instead of finding someplace abandoned where he can hide his anger and grief inside, he finds a park to lay on the grass of and stare up at the skies.

The clouds pass slowly. So slowly that CB is sure he can hear the way the world turns around him. A few kids end up playing on the park equipment nearby, screaming and shouting in both terror and joy. Their cacophony lends itself to the hum of the bugs in the grass, the thrum of the city as cars pass by. CB closes his eyes and, for a brief moment, really listens to these sounds and how they surround him.

There's no piano playing and no dogs today, but there may be some tomorrow, or the day after, or next week, or years later from now. Life goes on, but not out of malice. Life goes on out of necessity.

When CB opens his eyes, nothing is magically better. But he can admit to Van's sister later that his heart is broken and he's lost his way once again. She'll be the reassurance he needs to finally visit Beethoven's grave. To finally lay his dog to rest. To finally say goodbye to the ones he loved and lost in such a short time.

And he'll get up and move on, this time with life.


End file.
